COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Veterans
How Far The G.I. Bill Really Takes You
Matt Mireles, Current Magazine
April 13, 2007
Spring 2007 - You've seen the ads on TV, on billboards, in magazinespromising that if you sign on the dotted line, after four short, easy
years of military service, college will get paid for. Aww, thanks
Uncle Sam. But is it always true?
For starters, the money available to veterans through the Montgomery
GI Bill, the 1984 revamped version of the original legislation, is a
fixed amount. It doesn't change if you go to a $30,000 a year private
school in Connecticut or a $26 a credit community college in
California. For someone who served in the active-duty military, the
standard allotment is $1,075 tax-free dollars a month. That number
goes down to $309 for reservists, but bonuses throw in as much as
$950. Here's how some of our veterans faired at their respective schools...
Ex-Marine and University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Jake Warner gets
a monthly check for $1,185, enough to cover his living expenses ($510
for rent + $250 necessities) plus four 30-packs of Miller High Life.
But, he says, "you can't survive off just the GI Bill." After
financial aid, his tuition bill ends up around $2,000 a semester. He
tutors a seventh grader to make up the difference.
Because she received an ROTC scholarship as an undergrad, Starr
Renee-Corbin, a UT-Austin grad student, doesn't a get a dime from the
feds. But thanks to the state of Texas' Hazelwood Act, she gets 150
credit hours of public university tuition for free. "The paperwork
was really easy," she said.
Jon "Johnny" Kuskie is living high on the hog at Chadron State
College. His monthly $1,225 covers his needs, including $133 for rent
plus an estimated $3,000 a semester for tuition. With the low cost of
housing in his little corner of Nebraska, he spends as much on beer
as he does on rent, he said. "Of course," he said, "if I went to the
[more expensive] University of Nebraska, I'd be hurting."
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of